Tuesday, June 7, 2011

It's been an amazing year. Tornadoes, floods, cold snaps, record rain and snowfall. I live in California and last week 4 tornadoes touched down in the Sacramento Valley and one twisted around for an hour flinging almond trees all over the place. We don't see many tornadoes in California. Winter is still here. We actually had a few days of spring last month, but been below freezing at 4,000 feet every night where I live in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

And, of course, to add insult to injury so to speak, the record precipitation is bringing all the radioactivity from the 3 Fukushima meltdowns right down to the ground where we all live - why isn't this in the news everyday? Well, that's another story.

OH, and by the way, the world is also creating more CO2 than ever before - another record!

It's time to get a handle on climate change and what it may mean for our future. The damage has been done and we've got to be as ready as we can. I've created some GIS shapefiles based on the most recent IPCC data. I used the A2 scenario because it seems to be the most likely to me. You can find out more about the IPCC scenarios here. With these shapefiles I can look at and compare various changes and scenarios for each decade from 2010 through 2099. I can:

Compare temperature changes throughout the year, month by month.

Compare precipitation changes throughout the year, month by month.

Combine the above and see where and when it's likely to snow or rain.

Look at temperature changes and determine when a heavy snowpack might thaw quickly and early resulting in flooding.

Look at temperature changes and detemine what might be the best vegetables to grow.

Examine temperature changes and see what affect that might have on my land - wildlife and plantlife changes over time.